Nesting (voting districts)
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Nesting is the delimitation of voting districts for one elected body in order to define the voting districts for another body.[1]
The major concerns of nesting are:
- the practice may impede the creation of majority-minority districts
- the practice may cause cities or other communities with common concerns to be split into different voting districts (and therefore dilute their votes)
US States which perform nesting[edit]
The US States which have nesting in their state legislatures (with the ratio of lower house to upper):
- Alaska (2/1)[2]
- Arizona (2/1)[3] (districts are identical)
- Illinois (2/1)[4]
- Iowa (2/1)[5]
- Maryland (3/1)[6] (29 of 47 districts are identical)
- Minnesota (2/1)[7]
- Montana (2/1)[8]
- New Jersey (2/1)[9] (districts are identical)
- North Dakota (2/1)[10] (45 of 47 districts are identical)
- Ohio (3/1)[11]
- Oregon (2/1)[12]
- South Dakota (2/1)[13] (33 of 35 districts are identical)
- Washington (2/1)[14] (districts are identical)
- Wisconsin (3/1)[15]
In addition there are four states with exact ratios (California, Hawaii, New York, and Wyoming) that encourage, but do not require, nesting of legislative districts.[16] Two other states with uneven lower-upper house ratios (Rhode Island and Utah) encourage nesting between legislative and congressional districts. Six other states (Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and Tennessee) have lower-to-upper house seat ratios ranging from 2/1 to 4/1, but do not feature nesting in their laws on redistricting.
Other jurisdictions which perform nesting[edit]
Under the 1970 constitution, Fiji had ten National constituencies. Each of them elected one indigenous Fijian member and one Indo-Fijian member on its own, but two national constituencies were nested into one for the election of General electors' representatives.[17]
The Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru are elected using an Additional member system, combining single-member constituencies with a party-list component chosen to ensure overall proportional representation across the chamber. To elect this proportional component, single-member constituencies are nested together within larger multi-member regions. In addition, the Single-member constituencies in the Senedd are identical to those used for the UK House of Commons; this was also the case in Scotland until the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies.
References[edit]
- ^ Reapportionment and Redistricting in the West By Gary F. Moncrief p30
- ^ All about Redistricting - Alaska
- ^ All about Redistricting - Arizona
- ^ Illinois Constitution Article IV, Section 2(b) http://www.ilga.gov/commission/lrb/con4.htm
- ^ All about Redistricting - Iowa
- ^ All about Redistricting -Maryland
- ^ All about Redistricting - Minnesota
- ^ All about Redistricting -Montana
- ^ All about Redistricting - New Jersey
- ^ All about Redistricting - North Dakota
- ^ All about Redistricting - Ohio
- ^ All about Redistricting - Oregon
- ^ All about Redistricting - South Dakota
- ^ All about Redistricting - Washington
- ^ All about Redistricting -Wisconsin
- ^ Where the lines are drawn by the Brennan Center for Justice
- ^ "Fiji Independence Order 1970 and Constitution of Fiji".
External links[edit]
- The Implications of Nesting in California Redistricting an August 2007 UC Berkeley study by Bruce E. Cain and Karin Mac Donald (link to archive)